SpaceX's big new rocket blasted off Tuesday on its first test flight, carrying a red sports car aiming for an endless road trip past Mars.

And you might recall the last time SpaceX launched a rocket from Vandenberg in December. Southern Californians took to social media after capturing a bright object blazing through the sky with some speculating they had just witnessed a UFO, prompting the company's founder, Elon Musk, to poke fun at the situation.

Californians were hoping for a repeat of such a spectacle Thursday morning, but this time the sky was much brighter, making the plume less brilliant.

The Falcon's first stage was used to launch a satellite for Taiwan last August and was recovered by landing it on a drone ship in the Pacific. This time there was no effort to recover the first stage and it fell into the sea.